4.5
Picnicking, Paddling and Promenading
We visited this beautiful, clean beach for the second time this year and it was just as lovely as the first time we visited. It’s an ideal place for a day out, particularly if you are visiting The Hague during a heatwave (as we were). I really loved the atmosphere here, it was so lovely to see families of all ages safely out at night and what made it even more special was that wheelchair users can access two concrete ramps down to the high water-line of the sea; from my own experience, this is unusual in the UK and I think that we have a lot to learn from The Netherlands' example.
There are many cafes and bars along the promenade/boulevard which is wheelchair accessible; one end of the beach is much busier than the other. Scheveningen beach used to be a popular destination for people recovering from T. B. as well as for Dutch artists; Van Gogh painted it. One of his paintings of a stormy day there still has the sand grains on the canvas! There is also an immersive 19th Century Mesdag painting in the Museum ‘Panorama Mesdag’ nearby but as the museum is only partially accessible for powerchairs and the panorama itself can’t be accessed by powerchairs, I didn’t go.
If you want to be actually in the sea or closer to it, you can also hire beach wheelchairs and walkers so it seems like they have really thought about disabled people having the full beach experience and that means a lot. I think that you should allow a few hours for your visit; we had a great time picnicking and paddling, watching the gorgeous orange sunset, in fact, none of us could believe that it was so late; it didn’t start to get dark until 10.30! I will definitely be coming back next time I'm in The Hague.
We visited this beautiful, clean beach for the second time this year and it was just as lovely as the first time we visited. It’s an ideal place for a day out, particularly if you are visiting The Hague during a heatwave (as we were). I really loved the atmosphere here, it was so lovely to see families of all ages safely out at night and what made it even more special was that wheelchair users can access two concrete ramps down to the high water-line of the sea; from my own experience, this is unusual in the UK and I think that we have a lot to learn from The Netherlands' example.
There are many cafes and bars along the promenade/boulevard which is wheelchair accessible; one end of the beach is much busier than the other. Scheveningen beach used to be a popular destination for people recovering from T. B. as well as for Dutch artists; Van Gogh painted it. One of his paintings of a stormy day there still has the sand grains on the canvas! There is also an immersive 19th Century Mesdag painting in the Museum ‘Panorama Mesdag’ nearby but as the museum is only partially accessible for powerchairs and the panorama itself can’t be accessed by powerchairs, I didn’t go.
If you want to be actually in the sea or closer to it, you can also hire beach wheelchairs and walkers so it seems like they have really thought about disabled people having the full beach experience and that means a lot. I think that you should allow a few hours for your visit; we had a great time picnicking and paddling, watching the gorgeous orange sunset, in fact, none of us could believe that it was so late; it didn’t start to get dark until 10.30! I will definitely be coming back next time I'm in The Hague.
